Abu Dhabi University

College of Art & Sciences

Physics II Lab, PHY201L.




Spring semester 2011-12



Experiment #: 9A



Experiment Title: RC Circuit



Group: 1 Section #: 51




Students Names: ID
1. Dania Madad 1013449
2. Asyya Bassam 1011916






Submission Date: 24 / 5 / 2012






Experiment 09-A: To study Charging and Discharging the RC Circuit
(Power Output, Voltage Sensor)

E&M: RC circuit
DataStudio file: 09A- RC Circuit.ds
Equipment List
1 PASCO 750 Interface
2 Banana Plug Patch Cord
1 AC/DC Electronics Laboratory
1 Voltage Sensor
Connect the voltage Sensor to the interface on channel A

Introduction
The purpose of this activity is to measure the voltage across a capacitor as it is charged
and then discharged through a resistor that is in series with the capacitor. Use a Voltage
Sensor to measure the change in voltage across the capacitor. Use the Output feature of
the interface to first charge and then discharge the capacitor through the resistor.
Calculate the capacitance of the capacitor based on your data and compare to the printed
value on the capacitor.
When a DC voltage source is connected across an uncharged capacitor,
the rate at which the capacitor charges up decreases as time passes. At
first, the capacitor is easy to charge because there is very little charge
on the plates. But as charge accumulates on the plates, the voltage
source must do more work to move additional charges onto the plates
because the plates already have charge of the same sign on them. As a result, the
capacitor charges exponentially, quickly at the beginning and more slowly as the
capacitor becomes fully charged. The charge on the plates at any time is given by:

q = q
o
1 e
t
t
|
\

|
.
|

where q
o
is the maximum charge on the plates and t is the capacitive time constant (t =
RC, where R is resistance and C is capacitance). NOTE: The stated value of a capacitor
may vary by as much as 20% from the actual value. Taking the extreme limits, notice
that when t = 0, q = 0 which means there is not any charge on the plates initially. Also
notice that when t goes to infinity, q goes to q
o
which means it takes an infinite amount
of time to completely charge the capacitor.


The time it takes to charge the capacitor to half full is called the half-life and is related to
the capacitive time constant in the following way:

t
1
2
= RCln2
t
1
2
= t ln2

In this activity the charge on the capacitor will be measured indirectly by measuring the
voltage across the capacitor since these two values are proportional to each other: q =
CV.























Setup
1. Set up the PASCO 750 Interface and computer and start DataStudio.
2. Connect the Voltage Sensor into the interface. Connect banana plug patch cords
into the OUTPUT ports on the PASCO 750 Interface.
3. Open the DataStudio file:09A- RC Circuit.ds
- The file opens with a Graph display of voltage versus time and a Signal Generator
window for controlling the output from the
interface.
- The Signal Generator is set to output a 4-
volt positive only square wave at 0.100
Hz. The Signal Generator is set to Auto
so it will start and stop automatically when
you start and stop measuring data.
- Data recording is set to stop automatically
after 20 seconds.
4. Set up the circuit shown in the illustration.
Place a 1000-ohm resistor (brown, black,

V =V
0
1 e
t
t
|
\

|
.
|
0.75 = 1 e
t
t
0.25 = e
t
t
ln(0.25) =
t
RC
t = RCln(0.25)
red) in the pair of spring clips nearest to the top banana jack at the lower right
corner of the AC/DC Electronics Laboratory board.
5. Place a 330 microfarad (F) capacitor in the pair of spring clips nearest the bottom
banana jack on the board. Connect a wire lead between spring clips at the left end
of the resistor and capacitor.
6. Put alligator clips on the Voltage Sensor leads and connect the alligator clips at
each end of the capacitor.
7. Plug the banana plug patch cords from the OUTPUT port of the PASCO 750
Interface into the banana jacks on the board.


Procedure
1. In DataStudio, click Start to begin recording data.
- Watch the Graph display of voltage versus time.
2. Data recording will continue for 20 seconds and then stop automatically. Run #1
should appear in the Data list.



Analysis
1. Rescale the Graph display if needed.
2. Expand a region of the Graph display. Use the Zoom
Select tool in DataStudio to click-and-draw a rectangle
over a region of the plot of Voltage versus Time that
shows the voltage rising from zero volts to the
maximum volts.
3. Use the built-in analysis tools in the Graph display to
find the time to half-max.
- Click the Smart Tool. Move the cursor to the point
on the plot where the voltage begins to rise. Drag the
corner of the Smart Tool to the point where the voltage is about 2 volts. The
time to half-max is the x-coordinate.
Record the time to half-max in the Lab Report section. Use t1
2
= t ln2 = 0.693 x RC to
calculate the capacitance (C) of the capacitor
Calculation and results:

Data
Time to half-max (t
1/2
) =


Calculation
1. Calculate the capacitance of the capacitor:


t
1
2
= t ln2 = RCln2 = RC 0.693
( )
C =
t
1
2
R 0.693
( )

Calculated Capacitance =

Actual Capacitance Used = 330 F


2. Determine the percent difference between the calculated capacitance and the
value on the capacitor (330 F):


%diff =
calculated 330F
330F
100%



|


|



Questions
1. The time to half-maximum voltage is how long it takes the capacitor to charge
halfway. Based on your experimental results, how long does it take for the
capacitor to charge to 75% of its maximum?

2. After four half-lifes (i.e., time to half-max), to what percentage of the maximum
charge is the capacitor charged?
100%, because all the capacitor becomes charged

3. What is the maximum charge for the capacitor in this experiment?

4. What are some factors that could account for the percent difference between the stated
and experimental values?

Software doesnt calculate accurately
Tools that used in measuring voltage and time.

Activity Find the value of the covered capacitor placed along your apparatus, following
the same procedure.

Discussion and conclusion:
The objective of this experiment is to study the charging and discharging of a
capacitor by measuring the voltage along the capacitor. It is RC circuit, so we
connect the capacitor in series with the resistor. The capacitor is initially uncharged,
but when its connected to DC voltage source, it begins to charge up.

So, the charge in that capacitor and the voltage across it increase with time. This
time that indicates how fast or slows a capacitor charges or discharges is called the
time constant which is also the product of the capacitance and the resistance. Our
goal is to measure the value of any capacitance using this time.

= RC

A capacitor needs a time period equal to 4 time constants to charge up to the
maximum value. When this happens, we can assume for practical purposes that the
capacitor is fully charged. But during the discharging, both the charge and the
potential difference decrease with time until they nearly reach zero.

The time it takes to charge the capacitor to half full is called the half-life:

In our experiment, we focus in the voltage rather the charge. The rate of voltage rise
depends on the value of the capacitance and the resistance in the circuit. The voltage
across the capacitor represents as:-

where t = RC is defined as the capacitive time constant of the RC circuit, and V0 is
the maximum potential difference across the capacitor.

We had two capacitance, one with and the other unknown capacitance. We
make our calculations to measure the half-time by subtract two values of time that
we take from graphs. After that we apply the half-time function to measure the
capacitance in each capacitor.